Author Archives: DomainNameWire

About DomainNameWire

Domain Name Wire is a blog that deals with the domain name sector. The blog covers a range of domain related topics ranging from issues concerning expiring domains, monetization, domain registries and registrars, ICANN, policy, law etc. The blog began in March, 2005, after Mr. Allemann had dropped out of meetings to become involved in domain portfolio company, iREIT. The project began as a hobby to keep him involved in the domaining business, and then became his full-time business.

Wed 9th September 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Jothan Frakes to lead Moniker - Frakes to the rescue? Domain name industry veteran Jothan Frakes is set to take over the helm of Moniker as interim CEO later this month. Frakes will have a tough challenge ahead of him. Moniker has been in a tailspin ever since it switched from its legacy system to a reseller platform under the ownership of KeyDrive. The new system was confusing to users. Worse, migration errors led to domain names missing from accounts and incorrect account balances. Support and communication during the transition ... read more ...
Tue 8th September 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Trump is still trending…in .com - Trump, Alphabet were hot keywords in domain name registrations last month. At some point, Donald Trump will flame out of the presidential race. Until then, The Donald is giving .com registry Verisign a bit of a bump. For the second month in a row, “trump” made the list of Verisign’s trending keywords in .com registrations. That’s impressive since the list is created by looking at the jump the keyword made over the previous month. And if you think Verisign completely lost out on Google’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Symantec released obvious for rating domain registrars - Does your registrars’ reputation matter? The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted patent number 9,130,962 (pdf) to Symantec for “Calculating Domain Registrar Reputation by Analysis of Hosted Domains”. Symantec, which sells the web security product line Norton, suggests that calculating a registrar reputation score helps determine how much scrutiny to give to websites connected to domain names at that registrar. If a registrar has a high proportion of names distributing malware, responsible ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Lead Gen and Domain Names with Braden Pollock – DNW Podcast #49 - Can domainers make money with lead gen? Is there a scaleable way to monetize domain names with lead generation? Today’s guest, Braden Pollock, runs lead generation company Legal Brand Marketing. We’ll chat about monetizing domains with lead gen, as well as get Braden’s opinion on new top level domains (he’s invested in some) and the state of the domain name aftermarket. Plus: a new Domain Dunce, .com winners and losers, not quite “emazing”, domain scams and congrats to .Online. Subscribe ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Club banks with some-more reward sales in August - .Club sells another $100k in premium domain names. The .Club registry has released premium domain sales totals from August, much like it did for the previous month. This provides great insight into premium sales by registries. .Club’s domains come with a one time premium rather than annual renewal. Last month it sold 15 premium .club domains through nine different sources, led by 6 sales at GoDaddy. The top sales were Super.club (not supper) for $7,095, and Sea.club and Betting.club for $7,000 ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Donuts releasing 2 impression domain names this week - TV.show, RX.delivery and other domains are available for registration on Wednesday. Have your eye on a two character domain name in one of Donuts’ domain names? You can start registering them on Wednesday, September 9. Previously withheld two letter domain names, such as TV.show and NY.pizza, will debut with a seven day Dutch auction tomorrow. This is essentially the same as Early Access, which has been run for all Donuts releases and name collision names. The following Wednesday, names will revert ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
This week: .Ski and .Lotto domain names - Hit the slopes with .Ski this week. Two new top level domain names launch today, the most anticipated of which is .ski. .Ski got 1,000 registrations during a combined Sunrise and Limited Registration Period. A number of entities and people that are key targets for .ski don’t have trademarks, so the Limited Registration Period (LRP) enabled them to get first dibs on domains before they headed to general availability. Among those participating in sunrise or LRP include: The most famous ski resorts ... read more ...
Fri 4th September 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Panel manners that Rightside's .Cam focus is still in a mix - String confusion objection ruling is overturned. Verisign’s successful string confusion objection against Rightside’s .cam top level domain name has been overturned. ICANN was put in a sticky situation after Verisign’s string confusion objections against two .cam applicants failed, but it prevailed against Rightside’s .cam application. The group decided to have a panel review the Rightside decision, and that panel has overturned (pdf) the original decision. As a result, the two other applicants ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Dunce Award: Blue Coat - Security firm should admit it screwed-up labeling .zip the shadiest top level domain. It’s been a while since I’ve handed out a prestigious Domain Dunce award, but this week’s “Shady TLDs” report from security firm Blue Coat is very deserving. Both Michael Berkens and Kevin Murphy covered the original report, which labeled .Zip the shadiest top level domain with 100% shady sites. There’s just one problem: .Zip is an unreleased top level domain name from Google. There’s only one second ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Uniregistry continues to gleam in .Com Winners and Losers - Here’s how registrars fared with .com in May. Uniregistry recently announced that it crossed the million domain milestone. I’m not sure how Frank Schilling’s own domain names and North Sound new TLDs are accounted for, but the number is strong even if all of his domains in the total. For the second month in a row, Uniregistry tops the transfer gains in Verisign’s monthly report. Keep in mind that these reports are published after a three month delay. So this post is about May’s results. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
CPE numbers don't supplement adult for CPAs - Accounting groups fail to make the case that they should get community status for .CPA applications. Two applicants for the .CPA top level domain name have lost Community Priority Evaluations. American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and CPA Australia Ltd both failed to score the required 14 points out of 16 necessary to get Community status. They were tripped up on the Nexus requirement, where neither scored a point. In both cases, the CPE panels noted that the applications restricted ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Emazing.nl nailed for Reverse Domain Name Hijacking - Web design firm in Netherlands is a reverse domain name hijacker. Web design firm Emazing B.V., which uses the domain name Emazing.nl, has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name Emazing.com. Amazingly, Emazing’s lawyers seem to have really shot themselves in the foot: they submitted a supplemental filing that was key to the RDNH finding. The owner of Emazing.com registered the domain name before the complainant had a trademark for Emazing. But Emazing.com ... read more ...
Thu 3rd September 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Here's one source behind a proliferation of Whois marketing - Cheap, fresh whois data is leading to increased spam and telemarketing. I usually keep my iPhone on “do not disturb” mode at night. But not on August 16. My wife was traveling, so I kept it on in case she needed to reach me. At 4:19 in the morning, my phone pinged and woke me up. It wasn’t my wife. It was this text message: The text message I received was from Devan Crow, who owns a Florida business called SkyNet Group LLC. For $500 a quarter (or less for longer term subscriptions), Crow ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
AISE.com during $19.5k and other lapsed domain name sales - Joseph Peterson’s weekly roundup of expired domain name sales. China is back with AISE.com ($19.5k) foremost among expired domain sales at NameJet. These days any LLLL.com attracts bids, whatever the letters; yet this domain ought to be classified as meaningful Pinyin rather than as an acronym or an arbitrary 4-letter string. In Chinese, ài / 愛 means “to love”; and sè / 色 means “color”, “appearance”, or “sex”. Therefore it may be that China likes sex more than AISE, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
DomainApps to discharge calm sites, turn only a parking company - Company created to challenge domain parking is now just a domain parking company. It has come full circle. DomainApps, which came to life as WhyPark and an alternative to domain name parking, will now become just a parking company. The company sent an email to customers this morning stating that it will discontinue content sites effective October 1. Instead, DomainApps will “continue to monetize your domains with our top-tier advertising partner, bringing you the highest revenue possible.” In ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
eBay during 20 and a problem of building a market - Building a marketplace is hard, even in the domain name business. It’s crazy to think that it’s been 20 years since the first auction on eBay (then AuctionWeb). 20 years! So much has happened since then when it comes to the internet. eBay created a market of buyers and sellers, much like the two predominant domain name marketplaces (Sedo and Afternic) did. Here are a couple take-aways from this: 1. Creating a market is hard. A lot of people gripe about paying 20% commissions to Sedo and Afternic. ... read more ...
Wed 2nd September 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Online is fastest to 50,000 registrations - New domain name hits 50,000 registration milestone in record time. People continue to register .online domain names in droves. According to .Online registry Radix, .online is the fastest new domain to reach 50,000 registrations (excluding registries that gave away free domains). It took just 7 days to reach the milestone. According to the company, .Club took 13 days to hit this number and .NYC took 24 days. Nearly 1/3 of .Online domain names have been registered to people in Germany, thanks to 11’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What domains Under Armour and other companies bought final week - Under Armour wants you to Rule Yourself. Under Armour is getting ready to move into its new Austin office. It also has a new domain name in its portfolio. The company was one of many that bought domain names at Sedo this past week, led by Zoff.com at $25,000. Read about these domain name purchases and others in this week’s DNW End User report. Here’s the list: (You can view previous lists like this here. If you’d like to learn how to sell your domain names like these on Sedo, download this ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Web.com: Verisign did a "blatant bait-and-switch" - Company doesn’t want to provide accounting information to Verisign. Web.com is fighting back against a Verisign request for more information about how the registrar accounted for .xyz domain name registrations. Verisign is suing .XYZ for false advertising after .XYZ boasted about its registration volume — which Verisign alleges was inflated by a Network Solutions giveaway. Web.com owns Network Solutions, which gave away hundreds of thousands of .xyz domain names to its customers. At issue appears ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Here comes .Sex - Trademark holders can now claim domain names ending in .sex. ICM Registry has started the sunrise for its latest adult-themed domain name, .sex. .Sex joins .xxx, .adult and .porn in the company’s stable of top level domain names. As with .adult and .porn, there will be a unique Sunrise B and Domain Matching period. The traditional sunrise is now underway and will end October 1. During this period, brand holders must have a mark registered with the Trademark Clearinghouse in order to claim a corresponding ... read more ...
Tue 1st September 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Hot in August: Top 5 Stories on Domain Name Wire - A look back at the past month in the domain name biz. It’s back to school, cooler weather and domain name conference season… But before that, August was a news-making month for the domain name industry, in particular the .xyz domain name. I wrote multiple stories on some of the hotter topics, so I’ve grouped these together on the list. 1. Google is now part of Alphabet, uses ABC.xyz. This surprise announcement lifted awareness of all new top level domains. 2. Verisign v. XYZ – It was a busy ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
6 domain name association bonds are adult so distant this year - A good year for domain name stocks, especially compared to the broader market. Down market? Not for many domain name companies that have seen their stock prices jump quite a bit so far this year. As of the close of trading yesterday, six of the domain stocks I track are up. Just three are down, and two of these are down just a couple percent. That means all but one domain name stock are beating the DOW this year. Here’s a look at how domain name stocks are doing so far this year: Up Centralnic ... read more ...
Mon 31st August 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Company tries to obey Chinese TM domain scam, fails miserably - The trademark domain name scam is one of the oldest in the book. A registrar from China emails you, saying that someone is trying to register domain names very similar to your trademark or existing domain names. They’re checking with you as a courtesy to see if you’d like to register the domains first. Although it might seem like a kind gesture, it’s all a lie. They’re trying to get you to register domain names through them. Now a Brazil company is apparently trying the same tack. But it ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.XYZ seeks to boot Verisign's consultant testimony - New TLD company claims some expert testimony should not be allowed. .XYZ is asking the court to dismiss expert testimony from four expert witnesses in Verisign’s false advertising lawsuit against the new top level domain company. Some of the court filings are heavily redacted, leaving out the juicy details many in the domain name want to know. All expert witness reports were filed under seal. For example, just what kind of deal did .XYZ have with Network Solutions when the latter gave away hundreds ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Giving .Love to new TLDs with Christa Taylor – DNW Podcast #48 - New domain name consultant Christa Taylor discusses the current state of new top level domains. Christa Taylor runs new top level domain name consulting firm Dot TBA, which has assisted a number of new TLD applicants with their financial projections. She’s also currently involved with the launch of the .Love top level domain. Christa discusses the current state of new TLDs, how this will likely shake out in the next few years, and what’s .love got to do with it. Also: GoDaddy two-factor authentication ... read more ...